I've only flown my scout II 4m, not the 19m venom or 15m phantom, and the scout was already setup for me. And nah the phantom I got has a really small hole in it, my scouts pristine shape n crispy =P. So not all depowers hook up that similar?

Edit: The main concern you've brought up with me is the safety I think, the fact that they are older kites just makes it harder to relaunch/slower turning/things like this correct? The bar is the main thing that hinders my safety, what if I was to get rid of the 04 bar and get like the navigator bar for PL (it will work with these kites). That bar came out in 2009 and then I should be up to code safety wise.

I've only flown my scout II 4m, not the 19m venom or 15m phantom, and the scout was already setup for me. And nah the phantom I got has a really small hole in it, my scouts pristine shape n crispy =P. So not all depowers hook up that similar?

Inflatable C kites have a typical C shape, they have four lines, two sets of lines that go to the rear, the steering lines, and two sets of lines to the front. Typically an inflatable C kite will have no ability to relaunch (the modern fuel C kite is an exception), though it is possible to swim towards the kite in order to get it to roll over, though this doesn't always work. These kites will typically have a bar throw of about a foot, and have very little depower.

Supported leading edge inflatable kites are what we all use winter or summer. They have massive depower and will either flag out on a single steering line or they will flag out on a 5th line. The depower available for these kites is a few feet. Generally they make the throw as long as your arms can reach, so if you do have short arms, you will need to use the trim strap in order to adjust your kite on windy days. These kites relaunch very easily, have a good depower range and are well behaved.

Of the foil kites, you seem to have the open cell kites. If these kites hit the water, they sink, so if you take them out on the water, and crash, you're going to swim in. If you have a closed cell foil kite with a supported leading edge you have a foil kite that you can use on the water, typically if you crash this kite, you will do a reverse launch on it.

Now as for the actual bars, if you have a 2004 era C kite bar it will typically have an oh shit ring on the outside lines, so you do not have a spinning bar, and the throw will be very small. If you have a 2006+ era infatable bar, each bar will have a different amount of throw, so you have to be careful about matching up the amount of throw you have with your kite. The flag out line will either be on the center line, or it will be the 5th line, and in the case of the center line flag bars, you can't use q-powerline on your flag out line because the end of the stopper ball has to pass through a spliced loop and q-power line can't be spliced. if you have a 2006+ era bar with a 5 line, there are two kinds of bars, one bar with a slack 5th line and one with a tensioned 5th line, these kites and bars are not compatible, though people have flown them with the wrong bar, if you need a tensioned 5th line, you should get a bar capable of doing this, not an ordinary 5 line kite bar. Kites with a tensioned 5th line are North kites or some of the Naish C-style kites.

For the foil C kite shaped kites, pre-2006, I do not believe there is any typical safety setup, so it's a guess how the kite will flag out, the bar might have have a flag out option. The amount of throw you have will probably be very small a foot or so.

For the foil bridled closed cell water relaunchable kites, like the flysurfer, I beleve it functions pretty much the same as a water supported leading edge kite, but I've never heard of people swapping bars.

So yes all the kites function the same in terms of how the kites depower, you throw out the bar and it tilts the kite's trailing edge up so that it presents less lift to the wind. However, things that do not always match up are the amount of depower throw, and the flag out safety systems. There are also 2:1 ratio bars and kites that have unequal line lengths, but I'm not going to get into that.

So, sure theoretically you can fly every kite with every bar, but you will need to make some modifications of the bar, you will need to adjust the throw length of the bar to be compatible with the kite and you will need to make sure you flag out safety system works with your kite. Right now I'm flying liquid force, cabrinha, and ozone kites, and use the same bars with all my kites, and I have modified my bars, bridles and lines if there were any incompatibilities.

When I fly my old C kite with my modern bar, this means that I need to adjust the bar stopper down from a throw of about several feet down to about 4 inches, because the long throw has no effect on my older kite. My old C kite did come with a bar, I dismantled it for parts, so I can use the floats and leaders on my other bars, as the amount of throw it has is tiny and there is no room in the slot in this bar for my flag out safety to fit through. I might mod my old 2004 bar to work with my modern kites, I'm thinking of sawing off the steel loop on the bar, welding a new bigger loop on, splicing some new correctly sized leader lines, attaching O-Rings, and stopper bars in the correct places, and then attaching a chicken loop with a working quick release.

I don't own any foil kites by the way, though I would love buying a flysurfer deluxe 3 for light wind days.

"The main concern you've brought up with me is the safety I think, the fact that they are older kites just makes it harder to relaunch/slower turning/things like this correct? The bar is the main thing that hinders my safety, what if I was to get rid of the 04 bar and get like the navigator bar for PL (it will work with these kites). That bar came out in 2009 and then I should be up to code safety wise."

Kiters who fly buggies do not do what we do with our kites, it's an entirely different sport. They use relatively small kites, with open cell foils, typically in a c shape and do not normally have to worry as much about flagging out, because their kites are so much smaller. Kiters on the water require a lot larger kite because water has so much more friction than rolling wheels. So buggy riders do not typically require the massive depower of a supported leading edge kite, and the safety features are not as much of an issue.

snowkiters and kiteboarders do not use the same kites as power kiters, we don't use the same bars, we don't fly any of the equipment you will be able to buy on the power kiter sites except to buy parts. Sure they both use kites, but buggy and landboarding are different sports from kiteboarding, we don't usually share equipment. You seem to want to buy all this gear that is suited for riding buggies and landboards instead of kiteboarding on the water.

Now I'm not saying you can't use all these open cell foils on the water, go for it if you want, I just think you're gonna have problems relaunching. If all you ever do is snowkite you can keep your old bar and use these old kites.

buggy riders and snowkiters do not have to worry about relaunch capabilities, because you can just walk up to your kite and flip it.

I'm really not planning on doing anything with the water which is where all your concerns are coming from (if in the future of my kiting hobby I wanted to do stuff on the water I would definitely go with an LEI). I'm not that big a fan of water period, although I do have a wakeboard for the occasional session out on a boat. I was mainly looking to use it for snowkiting and maybe landboarding next summer. I guess I should have stated that from the start, I thought I did but nope! I really just wanted help setting up the kites and get a good amount of static flying experience going before I do anything else, but since now one knows about the PL around here I guess I'm on my own! And your sure this bar/lines will be okay? You got me freaked out with the depower % I'm about to return the bar and get a navigator just to be safe, 100 bucks isnt worth me getting hurt and unable to be active for even a week.

ps I just realized you might want to try hooking up with guys on the western side of the state not just SE MI they have all these sand dunes that you can buggy on and are more likely to have foil experience -> http://www.mackiteboarding.com/ is on the west side, they organize the King of the Great Lakes competition every year.

Since the snow kiting season is only Jan through Feb (2 short months -- ice is too thin in Dec & Mar) if you don't want to kite on the water, you should definitely plan some trips to western MI and do some landboard riding.

Sorry I am a little late to the thread here. The Phantom and Venom are great kites, relatively ageless as compared to LEIs. They are closed cell kites in their own classification called ARCs. They are used a LOT by guys on buggies, land boards, blades, skis and, yes, even on the water. Let me know if you are still hung up on safety and use.

BTW, depower on these kites is good! The '04 bar is good. If you want to post a photo or two of the bar I can help you get it all set up properly and assure you have appropriate safety. Of course, you can spring for the '07 bar or newer. Don't pitch the '04. It is worth something.

So I wonder what ever happened?Did they get set up or sold? Also I'm in Midland MI waiting on a new 4 line Peter Lynn Twister 5.5mAfter learning what a modern kite can do, (I flew stacked delta's 20+ years ago) I was looking at getting the new Peter Lynn Charger or Phantom in a 12 or 15m size. as both of those kites are suitable for land or water.Glad to see the MI kite site I'll be signing up there too

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